To encourage and promote start-ups in the food processing sector, CSIR-Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI), Mysuru, in association with Kautilya Entrepreneurship and Management Institute, has announced a joint programme titled Enterpreneurial opportunities in food and allied sectors. Slated to take place between June 5 and 16, 2017, the first week of the programme will be held at the CSIR-CFTRI campus and the second week will take place at Jain University campus.

This programme, which has been designed to address both technology and entrepreneurship to enable successful ventures in the field of food processing, is open for aspiring and early-stage entrepreneurs. It will focus on developing opportunities, customer value propositions, marketing, financing and branding, and delve into technologies for ready-to-eat (RTE) foods, natural beverages, superfoods, healthy snacks, minimally-processed vegetables, FSSAI regulations, etc.

The institute has been offering short-term training programmes on various aspects of food processing and technologies throughout the year. These are generally of five-day durations.

Ram Rajasekharan, director, CSIR-CFTRI, said, “The new initiative is in line with the Start-up India and Skill India Missions of the government of India, and can cater to the needs of various stakeholders, including entrepreneurs, micro-, small and medium enterprises (MSME), exporters, food parks and cold chain companies.” He added that this collaboration of the technology leader with management experts will be able to strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the sunrise sector, whose contribution to the country’s manufacturing gross domestic product (GDP) is 14 per cent.